Why I love... Dunlop Volleys

17 January 2004 — 11:00am

It's funny how an unpretentious sandshoe can have a profound effect on you. Not long ago, I was bushwalking in a national park in the Tasmanian wilderness when, in the dust, I spotted the familiar tread of the Dunlop Volley. It made me smile. It was like that moment when two Volley-wearers make eye contact in the street. For an instant, there is a common humanity. I love Volleys - for their truth.

While flashy designer sports shoes spruik the tyranny of modern fashion, Volleys chant a quiet mantra of substance. I love Volleys because they represent everything that is good.

They're sort of Mahatma Gandhi, Evonne Goolagong-Cawley and Martin Luther King expressed in a sandshoe.

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You can imagine Sir Thomas More requesting his Volleys as he prepared for the executioner; English and German soldiers exchanging Christmas Eve Volleys before joining together to sing Silent Night; nothing else adorning Zorba's dancing feet.

Volleys are so versatile. Roof-tilers put their lives in the hands of Volleys daily. So do wood-choppers. And you cannot get a painter's licence if you haven't got a pair.

North American canyoners and mountaineers rave about them on websites, lauding the qualities of the "little-known Australian canvas tennis shoe".

They are worn by trekkers in the Himalayas and recommended for a variety of adventure activities in New Zealand.

In broomsball, which is basically curling in an RSL hall, unfailing grip is vital and top players admit that Dunlop Volleys are better than official broomball shoes. And Pat Rafter, interviewed wearing Volleys on the yacht, Nicorette, soon after finishing third in the Big Boat Challenge, labelled Volleys "the best sailing shoes". Of course, Volleys start out as a sandshoe suitable for all sports. It is only the rigours of athletic endeavour that cause them to wear. Two holes develop: one where the canvas meets the rubber at the point of the big toe, and the other at the widest part of the shoe, resulting in the exposure of the little toe.

At this point, I tend to dispense with the three-hole lace up, reverting to two, giving Volleys the added feature of being slip-ons but finally rendering them useless for opening the bowling. They become ideal for gardening and you can delight in the knowledge that they are now precisely the shape of your foot. I am of the school that argues that mowing the lawn in Volleys does not preclude them from going to the opera.

Further down the track, the laces get so threadbare they can just fit across the two bottom holes. The big toe hole and the little toe hole are separated by a mere isthmus of canvas.

At this point, some retire their Volleys to oyster-collecting around rockpools and, when at last the laces snap and are removed completely, to mopping up flooded homes and communities. When the isthmus finally breaks, we grieve for the loss of a good and faithful friend.

It is this time of sadness when we need to remember how gloriously the Volleys started life; when we need to think of the great moments of that pair of Volleys; when we need to remember great moments of Volleys generally.

That's when we need to think of that windy, 40-degree day in January 1976, when Mark Edmondson, the unknown 21-year-old from Gosford, beat John Newcombe to be the last Australian to win the men's singles at the Australian Open - wearing a pair of Dunlop Volleys. Volleys helped us to love Mark Edmondson.